BEATS OF LOVE
43. Eye Mind (The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, the Pioneers of Psychedelic Sound) by Paul Drummond
IT'S NO coincidence that the best band of the 1980s, the Spacemen 3, honed their majestic druggy drone music in Rugby.
The most unfashionable of places. Self-described by leader Sonic Boom as a poly-drug band their Elevators influence is more than a little apparent. The Elevators wanted to be a strictly LSD band quite removed from everything else, but instead got hooked on all sorts of mind-bending substances and often by involuntary means. This somewhat confused their musical vision but cemented an endearing authenticity to their unrivalled sound.
That Paul Drummond devoted so much time to research, finding so many willing voices crawling out of the wood-work to speak with him, illustrates their far wider influence, and his need to unfold their saga in terms of tragic consequence. His ambitious debut commences with a typically enthusiastic Julian Cope foreword before bedding into a few high minded and brilliant pages that reveal the author's true talent for using his magniloquent voice to engage us with the central protagonists of this strangest of rock biographies.
Then quickly yields to their under-edited and rambling Texan voices, which miraculously still sound refreshingly warm and earthy. We craved a tale on the mightiest psychedelic band there ever was and then finally got this absolute mind-fuck of an overload. I was on a return train journey to Exeter and literally fell onto the platform when finally arriving back in Piccadilly.
Had I re-read the greatest book ever written or instead watched the longest music documentary of all-time for a second time? Right now, four days later, I still don't know.
But I do now know way too much about this band, whose crazed man-child singer, incessant electric jug, and exploratory musical messaging, has captivated me for decades. I need a lie down.
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